PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — With a Seminole man previously facing life in prison on child porn charges now likely to be released on Friday, both the State Attorney's Office and the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office are responding to the reason why: a judge's ruling that evidence obtained by a search warrant be tossed out because a detective and a prosecutor lied to obtain the search warrant in the first place.

Pinellas Judge William Burgess granted a motion on Nov. 1 to suppress all evidence obtained by the search warrant. That evidence reportedly includes photos and videos of James Rybicki, 63, molesting a 10-year-old girl in 2014.

According to court records, the two main issues were that Detective Michael Alvarez lied about the child not having consent to go to Rybicki's home. Alvarez also did not inform the judge that the statute of limitations had likely run out for a false imprisonment charge, which would have precluded a finding of probable cause to search.

Motion to suppress search warrant

 

Motion to Suppress by Anonymous ZfYtGlcL on Scribd

 

Judge's Order Granting Motion to Suppress

 

Order Granting by Anonymous ZfYtGlcL on Scribd

 

Justice done?

Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said he wants to arrest his former detective for perjury.

"It's wrong," Gualtieri said Thursday. "If he was here in Pinellas County today, I'd arrest him and put him in jail. He's not. He doesn't work here anymore. He hasn't worked here since 2017.

We've learned that Alvarez now works for the Ann Arbor Police Department in Michigan. We were unable to reach him for comment.

According to defense attorney Lucas Fleming, who conducted the deposition with Alvarez: 

"Det. Alvarez testified that he spoke with Kate Alexander about obtaining a search warrant for the false imprisonment charge." 

Alexander was the initial prosecutor on the case. Alexander now works for the Department of Justice in Washington D.C.

Kendall Davidson, executive assistant with the Pinellas State Attorney's Office, said they do not agree with Judge Burgess' factual determination that any prosecutors lied, asserting instead that all the misleading testimony came from Alvarez.

Gualtieri agreed.

"This was all on Detective Alvarez. It's not on anybody else," Gualtieri said. "Nobody at the State Attorney's Office wrote this, nobody at the State Attorney's Office prepared it and nobody at the State Attorney's Office swore to it."

We also spoke to a relative of the victim in the child porn and video voyeurism case, her great-grandmother, who was upset and claimed justice had not been done. She also said she does not blame Alvarez because in her mind he was doing what he thought was right.